What good is a relationship if you can’t ask questions?

In my long-ago dating days, I used to have a little experiment I did on any new boyfriend (at least the favoured ones who had a car). If we went out for a day trip, I would see whether he was willing to stop at the first sight of those special three words: ‘Tea rooms open’. I named it to myself as ‘the tea room test’. Needless to say, my husband of now 37 years passed!

Facing questions

Was this test an expression of doubt about any new boyfriend? Well, it’s not wrong to have doubts about a new relationship – it could be a safety measure. But I don’t think it was doubt, so much as an attempt to get to know the man better. And perhaps it’s not dissimilar when we have periods of doubt about God: Is God really there? Does God really love me? Does God understand me? We all ask such questions at times – perhaps because of some traumatic event, due to something we hoped for that hasn’t happened, or just because nothing much seems to be developing in our lives. Read some Christian biographies or memoirs – and, dare I say it, even articles in Christian magazines – and you might think the Christian life is just one miracle after another. I can assure you it isn’t. Sometimes it might feel like one disaster after another.

Christian teachers may give the impression that doubt is an attack on faith, to be combatted with the whole armour of God. I’m not so sure. At its heart, doubt is just asking questions you may not have asked before. We’re meant to be in a relationship with God, and what good is a relationship if you can’t ask questions?  

Faith and trust

We often talk as though doubt is the opposite of faith, but it really isn’t. I’ve heard many preachers and teachers say something like: “We have certainty in our faith, because God is trustworthy.” No, we don’t have certainty – if we did, there would be no need for faith. If anything, certainty is the opposite of faith. Faith is choosing to trust when we have good reason to trust, but it is not without an element of risk. I have faith that my husband will go on loving me, but I can’t possibly know that for certain. You may say that my husband is human and fallible, while God is divine and perfect, so there is more reason to trust God than to trust my husband. True, but our knowledge of God is limited by our own humanity, so our trust will always be imperfect – until faith is replaced by sight.

Our trust, however, is based on experience. If God has cared for us, called us and enabled us in the past, we will have more faith that God can and will do the same in the future. When things go wrong, I am very prone to panic and think that either God doesn’t care for me or that He doesn’t exist at all. Remembering how God has provided in the past can be, like Roo’s strengthening medicine, very fortifying (maybe that’s how Tigger, who loves it, maintains his bounces).

Repositioning ourselves

Perhaps doubt, too, can be a strengthener of faith. I have had times when the whole Christian edifice feels like no more than a collection of empty words. These, however, are the times when I cry out to God in desperation for rescue – and mysteriously, suddenly the words start filling with meaning again and God appears to be speaking to me in everything I see and hear.

We should not be quick, then, to call the ecclesiastical thought police whenever someone is going through a time of doubt. Among other things, it may simply be a psychological blip over which the person has no control. I was diagnosed not long ago with bipolar disorder type 2. When all the talk of God seems meaningless, it may just be that I am going through depression and simply have to take it easy and wait until my mood swings upwards again. 

The Bible tells us not to test God, as I tested new boyfriends with alluring tea rooms. However, there is a difference between testing, and putting ourselves somewhere we are likely to find God again. When we are cold, we will seek out a radiator or fire. So whenever we are feeling spiritually cold, it makes sense to go where we might experience God’s warmth – a retreat perhaps, or a gentle, caring church. For doubt is not an enemy of faith – it may just be a stepping stone to greater faith.